BaseLine
by Monoshiri
Summary: A series of drabbles about the Sound Four and the Sound genin, written for various challenges on naruto100. Be aware of dark themes, questionable sanity, and this being me, impending yaoiyuri.
1. Adopted

**Adopted**

None of the children of the Sound had families, but all of them could remember their mothers.

For some of them, it was ephemeral. It came to Zaku in the strong smell of alcohol, to Kidoumaru in the very occasional time when Tayuya patted him on the shoulder instead of punched him, to Kin in the snatch of an old song. For Sakon, it was a horrified scream from nowhere that woke him in the night; Ukon comforted his twin, and never spoke of his own, clearer dreams, of a woman's pale, delicate face contorted in horror, begging the ANBU man leaning over her shoulder to take the thing away, to leave it on a hillside to die. Kimimaro never had a chance to remember consciously, nor did he question why Orochimaru-sama's voice was the only thing that made him feel safe and loved.

It was harder on the ones who remembered most clearly. Jiroubou's mother was the only one who had argued against exiling him from the clan at age seven, because there was no way her son had _meant_ to deplete that other boy's chakra to the point where the child was left comatose, and she'd cried when they'd hauled him away. Tayuya scorned his sentimentalism; her own "mama" had burnt her tongue with hot wax every time she'd dared speak harshly or out of turn, and she in turn had thrown a burning oil lamp at the wall of the older woman's teahouse before running off into the night. She never mentioned this to Dosu, whose own calm and practical mother had hidden him in one of the cupboards at age five; from there he watched his father, mad with jealously and rage, cut his wife's throat, set the house aflame, and leave his son to burn and find his own way out.

Orochimaru understood all this perfectly. Children without mothers were lost, like sunflowers without the sun.

The ease with which he became their sun was almost laughable.

x x x x

Challenge was: mothers


	2. Scar Tissue

**Scar Tissue**

Kin had never particularly liked the colour pink, even as a child. It had meant little to her, except peripherally; pink was for the merchants' daughters in their silk kimonos on festival days, giggling and gossiping as Kin's grandmother barked at her to stop staring and get back to harvesting the rice.

She only really began to hate it years later, when she and Zaku finally convinced Dosu to take those stupid bandages off his face. He saw both their eyes go wide at the pink, shiny, swollen patches, the leftovers of second- and third-degree burns, and Dosu, implacable, practical Dosu, flinched slightly and started to put them back on again. Zaku had laughed it off and pulled both his lovers into a rough hug, but the memory of it remained, as did Dosu's insisting on kisses given and received through layers of linen.

So it was really to be expected. One look at that frivolous Leaf girl's crowning glory, and all Kin could see was red.

x x x x

challenge was: colours


	3. Unique, Too

**Unique, Too**

"We're back. Mission successful."

"We figured as much. Have you reported to Kabuto ye-um. Sakon?"

"Yes, what?"

"You've got something on your face, um...want a washcloth?"

A despairing sigh. "Took you long enough to notice. It's not-"

"It's a tattoo, Jiroubou, you unobservant fatass, it's a fucking tattoo! Holy shit, fairy boy, I never thought you'd have the balls to get one on your face!"

"Ooh, nice detailing on the kanji, there. What's it say? 'I'm easy?'"

"Shut up before I knot all six of your arms behind your damn head, Kidoumaru. It says 'special', okay?"

"Naah, I think it says 'If found, please return to Sutsumiru Mental Hospital, Room 31'-hey, HEY, no activating your curse seals in the rec room, dammit! Oi, Ukon, wake up, your brother's being irrational."

"Doesn't that fucking psychotic freak from Sand have something similar to that?"

"No, his is on his forehead, and mine is on my cheek, okay? Now let's see you guys mix me and Ukon up again!"

"Why is it so noisy in here? I'm trying to rest."

"A-ah, Kimimaro-sama, we didn't realize you were here, um-"

"What exactly is that thing on Sakon's face?"

"...it's a tattoo."

"It looks like he was trying to eat yakitori and missed his mouth in the process. How foolish. Where is Kabuto-sensei?"

"Upstairs, I think."

"Ah." Footsteps leading out of the room, coughing, a door slammed.

"Is he gone?"

"I think so."

"Not half a second too soon, in my opinion. Hey, faggot, what the hell are you doing?"

"Clearly none of you appreciate the subtle identifying nuances of body art..."

"You bastard, you're washing it off! That was a temporary tattoo?"

"Of course! If you think I'd let some guy with a needle near my face, you're nuttier than Kimimaro!"

"...you chickenshit bastard."

"No fair winding us up like that."

"Well, there's unique, and then there's just stupid. Besides, I could always try glittering blue eyeshadow as an alternative."

A second sigh, identical to the first but from a different set of lips. "Does anyone know how one goes about disowning a relative you're sharing a body with?"

x x x x

challenge was: prove something


	4. Wasting Goodbye

**Wasting Goodbye**

_Tayuya's never been good at using words as anything but weapons. Her favourite target is Jiroubou; it bothers him like nothing else, hearing foul words come out of a pretty girl, while the others have long learned to yawn and ignore her. Jiroubou's slow to learn; he argues or lectures, she responds with barbs, and he falls silent, resentment clouding his narrow, dark eyes, before getting up to leave. Tayuya savours her hollow victory, ignores the accusing look from Kidoumaru, and goes off to practise her flute. _

When they were kids of seven playing hide-and-seek, when Orochimaru-sama was still a kind of god/benevolant uncle figure, Jiroubou was always found first, always by Tayuya, who subsequently heaped abuse on him in the form of fat jibes, taking grim delight in making the big boy cry. He stopped crying eventually; Tayuya secretly took perverse pleasure in having toughened him up. Later, she would throw out the muddy flowers that had been deposited on her bed anonymously, and deliberately ignore Jiroubou's hurt eyes and hotly blushing cheeks.

She wouldn't have been doing him any favours, letting him stay a fat wimp crybaby.

x x x x

"So it's definite, then?"

"Yes," Sakon said gleefully. "We'll retrieve Uchiha Sasuke for Orochimaru-sama."

"Heh, could be fun," Kidoumaru enthused. Ukon and Tayuya both rolled their eyes in disgust: the spider-nin's strange sense of humour again. Then his dark brow furrowed. "But what happens if we're followed?"

"Depending on the strength of the enemy..." Jiroubou began.

"We could just throw you at 'em, fatass," Tayuya said casually, reaching over to prod Jiroubou's beefy arm with her flute. "That'd stop pretty much anything. Plus, you're weak and you'd slow us down anyway."

His eyes clouded, and for a moment she was reminded of how his chubby face used to crumple when she hurled meaningless (to her) words at him so long ago. But he stood up and his expression was hard. "Alright. But quit calling me fatass."

"Like hell I will, chickenshit," was all she said, when what she meant was, _"I trust you."_

x x x x

Tayuya lay on her back on the gurney, unable to move, staring up at the dank cement ceiling. Kabuto was saying things to her that hurt like no mere knife ever could: she _might_ get the use of her legs back if he completely rebuilt her spinal chord, they hadn't found Sakon and Ukon yet and probably wouldn't because those Sand puppeteers were very thorough, Kidoumaru was in a coma and unlikely to come out, and Jiroubou was, well, have a look for yourself, Tayuya-kun.

She managed to turn her head, and stared at the big sheet-draped figure on the gurney beside her in silence. Such a waste, Kabuto tutted disapprovingly. I did think him stronger than some Leaf genin, but oh well.

Only after Kabuto had been out of the room a good ten minutes did Tayuya allow herself to cry.

x x x x

challenge was: last chance


	5. Arts & Crafts

**Arts & Crafts**

When she'd agreed to follow Orochimaru-sensei upon his defection from Hidden Leaf, Anko had known that her new course in life would involve traumas and hardships. When she'd been considering these, babysitting hadn't turned up on the list, but trying to protest to Orochimaru that being eighteen and the possessor of enough kinjutsu to make an ANBU captain shiver in his boots made one overqualified as a nanny fell on deliberately deaf ears.

So it was that Anko found herself the unofficial minder of the nine-year-old members of the future Sound Four. The relationship did not start off well. She spent four of the first six hours of their acquaintance hunting Tayuya, Kidoumaru, and the twins down, tying them to a tree, and threatening them with ugly death until they finally broke and, sobbing, gave her the whereabouts of her beloved and cruelly kidnapped stuffed cat.

Tama-chan was missing its tail and cute flower hat when Anko found it.

Matters did not get better when Orochimaru returned and found four of his five bodyguards-in-training traumatized and weeping and the fifth, Jiroubou, apple-green ill from having snuck off to the pantry and gorged himself on baker's chocolate. Had the snake sannin been the type to really emote, steam would have been pouring from his ears. Which was probably why he dumped the brats with Anko again the next time Sasori dragged him off somewhere.

This time, she planned, and as the five of them examined her distrustfully, she told them brightly that if they were good little boys and girls, she would show them how to turn an adult male shinobi inside-out without actually touching him.

When Orochimaru returned with Kabuto in tow, he found the five half-savage hellions he'd picked up as present talent and future insurance quietly lolling around on the furniture of the rec room, making come-back-soon construction-paper cards for him, with Anko napping in an armchair. The fact that most of these cards involved bloody disembowelment and childish figures with their living hearts torn out rather pleased his sensibilities.

As Jiroubou clambered into Anko's lap and promptly dropped off, Kabuto decided that he wasn't half of afraid of Orochimaru-sama as he was of this girl who smiled in her sleep.

_challenge was: cards_


	6. Fluffy

Kiba stared at his little cousin. Then he stared at the thing his cousin was holding in her arms. Perched on his human's head, Akamaru growled two octaves too low for what such a little dog should have been able to manage.

"Oko, put that thing down!"

His cousin, three years old and stubborn, stuck out her chin. "No. 'S mine."

"It'll bite you!" Oko nodded at Akamaru, who was now baring pointy fangs at the interloper. Kiba did a little dance of frustration, causing Akamaru to slide off his perch and plop into his human's hood with a yelp. "Not like Akamaru does, dammit! It's poisonous! Where did you find that damn thing, anyway?"

Oko clung to her new pet with one chubby arm and used the other to point towards the riverbanks, her expression sour. "You're just jealous."

"I--what?"

"'Cause your puppy only has four legs. Mine's better, it gots eight."

Kiba stared at Oko in disbelief, before turning around and bellowing, "MOM! HANA! I COULD USE A LITTLE HELP OVER HERE!" His shout was answered by the ruckus of incoming Inuzuka dogs.

Fifteen minutes later, when he judged it was safe, Kidoumaru slipped out of the trees lining the opposite riverbank and fished his traumatized tarantula out of the water. He patted its thorax reassuringly, baring teeth in the direction the retreating Inuzuka tribe had taken.

"I hate this damn village already. When did Orochimaru-sama say we were gonna go in and kill their Hokage?"

Sakon rolled his eyes as he watched his unofficial second-in-command pat-drying his infant god summon and murmuring reassurances to it. People could be really stupid about their pets.

OWARI

_A/N: What Kiba's little cousin picked up was the spider equivalent of Gamatetsu, Naruto's bitty accidental toad summon._


	7. Get Up And Go

Every time he opens his eyes, it's a different person sitting next to him. Sakon, practically vibrating with righteous wrath and nowhere to vent it. Tayuya, lounging with all appearence of calm but simmering under the surface. Jiroubou, silent and unmoving as a stone Buddha because he knows he can't do anything about it.

Kidoumaru knows he should be sorry. Orochimaru-sama was apparently quite upset over the shallow cuts he made on Kimimaro's body, the hits he scored before the Kaguya got tired of playing with him and smashed him through the training room's rock wall. He knows Kabuto will let him heal slowly because of it. The pain will serve a reminder in the future, and an example to the others.

_"Don't bother getting up," says the white-haired vision of perfection above him, silk tunic all but floating around him, his foot bearing down on Kidoumaru's chest. "It's over."_

Except it won't. It isn't. Because...

_"Get up," Sakon snarls. "We don't have time for this. We need to train for the attack on Konoha, and we can't form the barrier without you."_

"Get up," Tayuya snaps. "It makes me sick watching you just lie there. You aren't a fucking invalid, dammit."

"Get up," Jiroubou urges. "We're a team, the _four__ of us. We can't afford to lose a man."_

Kabuto pretends to be surprised, when at the end of the day, Kidoumaru tries to pick up a book with his shattered upper-left arm and almost succeeds.


	8. Speed Over Beethoven, AU

Director Sarutobi, affectionately known as the Sandaime, folded his hands across his desk and frowned at his errant former pupil. "You ought to appreciate that I am not particularly inclined to squeeze your students in between the Suna drama club's rendition of "Throne of Blood" and Jiraiya's group's poetry recital, especially considered what happened last week in athletics."

Orochimaru's smile did not reach his eyes and never had. "Sarutobi-sensei, Tayuya assures me that what the incident was merely the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding between herself and the president of your chess club. How is Nara-kun, by the way?"

"Out of the hospital, no thanks to your star pupils," Sarutobi said flatly. "If you had any sense at all, that young lady wouldn't be in a band, she'd be in handcuffs. According to their permanent record the rest of them are no better."

"You must understand that their group is going through a difficult time," Orochimaru replied, smooth as always. "Their lead singer, my own protege, has tragically contracted AIDS and been obliged to leave the group. The children are simply rather...tense."

Sarutobi said nothing. Orochimaru's students at the breakaway Oto High School, formed out of spite when Sarutobi gave the directorship of Konoha Comprehensive Middle and High School to a younger man, were talented without a doubt, but highly troubled. Still, he wanted to reconcile with Orochimaru, perhaps irrationally but more than he would like to admit, and turning down his polite request to let his most talented kids perform in Konoha's recently upgraded auditorium was not the way to go about it. He sighed and shuffled the papers before him again. There would be trouble from this, he just knew it.

"If Kankuro's group has no objection to performing slightly earlier in the evening, I suppose it's alright..."

Orochimaru tilted his head slightly to look at his former mentor, his false smile fading. "Thank you. You will not regret it, Sarutobi-sensei."

"...just one thing, though; what will they be performing?"

"Why, Beethoven, of course."

Fifteen minutes later, Orochimaru was walking towards the auditorium proper, Konoha teacher's assistant Yakushi Kabuto by his side. If it had not been so late in the evening, someone might have been there to notice and remark on how Kabuto's fingers tended to accidentally brush the back of the older man's hand every so often. Even so, their tone was businesslike as they spoke quietly.

"So the poison is undetectable?"

"It will look as if he had a heart attack," Kabuto murmured. "The plan is flawless...so long as you can get close enough to give him the injection, that is."

Orochimaru smirked. "You doubt me, Kabuto? Sarutobi-sensei's gone senile, and I have Suna Progressive School's director in my power. And you've already confirmed that Sasuke-kun will be there watching during the recital. Nothing to worry about at all."

"Mm, of course not." Kabuto's smile was odd as they reached the auditorium doors. "Assuming the kids don't get stage fright."

The doors opened onto carnage, the strident sound of keyboarder Tayuya and lead guitarist Sakon engaged in a screaming fight over whether or not to wed the bridge from "Path" into the third refrain of "Fur Elise", punctuated by bassist Jiroubou arguing with AV tech Dosu over the placement of subwoofers and Kidoumaru improvising a drum solo so fast his arms seemed to blur into triples of themselves. Ukon, who was surreptitiously smoking up behind the drum kit, noticed their sensei's entrance and made a quick round to prod people in the ribs. All six Oto students fell respectfully silent, eyes fixed on Orochimaru, although Sakon's green lipstick-stained mouth was pressed shut as if he were trying to physically hold in an obscene tirade.

Orochimaru smiled approvingly at them. "This will go perfectly, I'm certain. And one way or another...they'll get an even better lead singer and lyricist out of it."


	9. Alternate Approach, One Piece Crossover

Traditionally, ninja cultivated an aura of mystery and ruthlessness. Part of this was because they really _were_ mysterious and ruthless, but part of it was, quite honestly, just to make their jobs easier. Civilians were a lot more likely to be deferential and co-operative with the judicious application of a dead-eyed ninja glare, whether you owned a Mangekyou Sharingan or not (besides, to a certain mind it was kind of fun).

Sakon applied that glare to the woman across from him. She looked back at him, unmoved.

He tried harder. The bitch had the nerve to _smile_ at him.

"If you promise to behave yourself, I'll let you use the washroom."

"_What_?" barked Sakon, inadvertantly chiming in with the woman's accomplice.

"You were making such a strange face, Seimon-san, that I assumed you must have eaten some bad meat and were having trouble with your..."

Sakon hunched over miserably, ignoring Kidoumaru's snickering. This was supposed to be a straightforward mission, nothing more than investigating and taking over the strange ship that'd docked on a small island just off the east shores of Sound's territory. Instead, his squad had suffered the single most humiliating defeat in their entire long, violent careers as shinobi...at the hands of this engimatically smiling older woman who'd calmly used her unholy bloodline limit and dropped the three male members of the Sound's Four in whimpering, squirming heaps in less than ten seconds before tying them up. They'd be singing soprano for a week after this, even Jiroubou, he reflected grimly, and tried not to sulk about why couldn't he and Ukon use _their_ kekkei genkai to punch someone in the balls from fifteen yards away.

Which reminded him...

"Oi," he hissed over at Tayuya, who'd been silent ever since she was tied to the other side of the mast, "the rest of us had a good reason for losin' our fight, but it's not like she could do _that_ to you..." The redhead turned and shot him a baleful look.

"...uh..."

"I can answer that one," the woman's blue-haired accomplice said cheerfully, raising his sunglasses and thrusting that ludicrously multi-pointed chin of his practically into Sakon's face. "I got so excited at the prospect of a good fight, I lost my swimming trunks..."

Tayuya made a gagging noise. Her comrades momentarily forgot their own smarting equipment and shuddered in sympathy.

"What? I kept my shirt on, nice palm-tree pattern...oh, Robin, thanks for finding the ole' speedo for me again!"

"Not at all, Franky-san," the smiling woman said, apparently perfectly comfortable with her companion's method of inflicting lasting psychological trauma on marauding kunoichi. "I must admit, I'm glad Captain-san decided to stop here for a bit. It's a nice place. The welcoming parties are surprisingly genial...a bit younger than I was expecting, but still."

Sakon went straight from shivering to bristling with wrath. "Oi, bachan, who the fuck d'you think you're callin' _youn-_"

"Genial?" Kidoumaru, who was a better listener than his teammate sometimes, interrupted. "We tried to kill you."

"Not hard enough," Robin informed him calmly. The Sound Four stared at her, flabbergasted.

Franky grinned. "Aw, if you kids are gonna sit there with your mouths hanging open, we should put 'em to better use. Tell you what, I'll teach ya a few super pirate songs to pass the time 'til the rest of the crew comes back. Ready? Oooooh fifteen men on a dead man's chee-he-hest...!"

Fuck mysterious and ruthless auras, Sakon thought to himself as Franky tried to convince Tayuya to whistle for 'C', pirates got all that accomplished by being totally feather-plucking insane.


End file.
